Hacker threatens to attack websites of Indonesian celebrities running for public office next

The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, September 10, 2008

By Indah Setiawati

Jakarta --- The City Police's Traffic Management Center (TMC) website was the target of a hacking attack on Tuesday that lasted several hours.

Information on Jakarta traffic was replaced with long messages criticizing the police.

One of the messages read "The National Police was the third most corrupt organization in 2005, second most in 2006, and the most corrupt organization in 2007. Where is the justice? Today, all Indonesian Police websites are OWNED!"

In the messages, the hacker, who claimed to have hacked all of the police's websites, said the next target would be the websites of Indonesian celebrities currently running for public office.

"I don't know exactly why the hacker targeted the TMC. I think they chose it because it has many visitors, so more people would see the message, which was clearly aimed at ruining the police's image," TMC chief Comr. Sambodo Purnomo told The Jakarta Post.

He said he suspected the hacker managed to infiltrate the website after the internet connection from state telecommunications company PT Telkom was temporarily disrupted.

The website, www.lantas.metro.go.id, was defaced at dawn on Tuesday, returning to normal again at 1 p.m.

"Officers from the National Police's Cyber Crime Division came to the TMC to help us fix the problem," Sambodo said.

He said the police would be on high alert for more attacks on their websites, and expressed hope that the perpetrator would soon be apprehended.

"I realize tracing the hacker might be difficult. But we will not sit back. We will take steps to protect the website and prevent similar attacks," he said.

The website was hacked earlier this year, but Sambodo called this previous attack "lenient" compared to the latest one.

"At that time, the hacker changed part of our website posting," he said.

The TMC website was launched in April 2005 when its office was still located in the City Traffic Police building in Pancoran, South Jakarta. The TMC later moved to City Police headquarters, and its offices were upgraded in March 2007.

In April this year, the website, which had recorded a total of 384,540 hits, was honored by the Indonesian Record Museum for pioneering a public information service based on technology and information.

Date Posted: 9/10/2008